In the field of economic markets, participants in a market are able to trade shares in a variety of different goods. For example, participants in the NYSE and NASDAQ stock markets use computer systems to buy and sell shares of public corporations.
As another example, participants in prediction markets (such as the Intrade™ prediction markets) can trade “shares” in whether various events such as whether a particular film will win the Academy Award® for Best Picture or whether a particular political candidate will win an upcoming election. Owners of these shares are paid if their predictions are turn out to be correct. For example, in a race between Candidate A and Candidate B in which each share would pay out $10 to the shareholder once the election was decided, the share prices for Candidates A and B would vary over the course of their election campaigns based on the market participants' perceptions of the probability that either candidate would win the election. Participants would buy and sell shares based on mismatches between their value and the current market values until such issues were resolved.
In a way similar to that of electronic stock markets, prediction markets are typically also built and run on computer systems which manage the orders placed by the participants and operate to execute the trades.